Sammy was on the ground. The major blows had already occurred. A girl came from the top of the screen and kicked her in the back. Another pranced toward her and palmed the back of Sammy’s head and pushed it toward the floor. Then the sequence repeated with variations.
Sammy swung and kicked blindly, unsure of who the next attacker would be or where the next strike would occur. Her shirt was ripped and pulled up.
Her pink tween training bra was exposed.
All the while, laughter and taunts echoed in the school hallway.
A teacher entered the fray, ordering the students back into their classrooms. A school resource officer ran to Sammy, kneeling beside her, and then the video cut out.
The ticker below the video indicated that it had been viewed 1,348 times. Below the ticker was a thumbs-up image. Four hundred eighty people had clicked that they liked it; just fifty had clicked that they did not.
The video was titled “Lil Rich Bitch Gets Stomped.”
Schmitty turned the iPad off. “We contacted the website, and they say it’ll be down within an hour.” He looked beyond me, at my mother and the Judge at the kitchen table, and then back at me. “Sammy doing OK?”
“Not really.” The knot grew in my throat. I tried to compose myself. “Thanks for coming, but”—I looked down at the iPad in his hand—“this is a little below your rank, isn’t it?”
“You and your kid are not below my rank.” Schmitty forced a smile, and I could tell that there was something more.
“And?” I pressed.
“And I wanted you to know that this is out there.” He spoke softly. “No calls from the media yet, but it could happen. The district attorney is thinking about charging, but there’s some complications.”
“Complications?”
“It’s high profile, Justin. You’re high profile right now. Most people are thinking you’re our next United States congressman. We’re just now getting out from under the police wrongly arresting you. Plus we got the Lost Boys story about to explode again, and now we got your kid beat up in one of our public schools.”
“So?” I was in no mood to debate the poor reputation of Saint Louis public schools or my political career, such as it was. “My daughter was hurt. I don’t have any comment on any of this.”
“Well that’s sort of the problem,” Schmitty said. “The girls in that video say that your daughter was bullying them. They say that she’s been antagonizing them all year, and that she threw the first punch before this video starts.”
“That’s ridiculous.” My anger boiled.
“I know it’s ridiculous, but we’re reviewing the school security videos now. That should help.” No doubt seeing the agitation on my face, Schmitty spoke in soothing tones. “The girls are being held down at juvie. But their families are demanding that we arrest your daughter, too.”
The muscles in my neck seized up as I spat out the words. “She was on the ground getting punched and kicked.”
“I know.” Schmitty raised his voice to match mine, then turned down the volume again. “But these aren’t rational people. They got dollar signs in their eyes. When they heard it was your daughter, they got an attorney who’s making noises about a civil lawsuit against the school for not protecting their kids, and another against you, against your daughter.”
Now my entire body was locked up tight. My hands balled in fists. “You should go now.”
Schmitty nodded. “That’s fine, but I needed you to know what’s going on.” He put his hand on my shoulder and leaned in. “And you need to know that we got you on this one. Chief owes you. I owe you. But know, too, that we got no control over these girls and their welfare moms. No control over them.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Before I did anything the next day, I flipped through the entire morning paper. There was no story about Sammy and the incident at school. Then I turned on my laptop computer.
I typed Sammy’s name into the search engine, quickly scanning the results. There was nothing. I ran a search using the school’s name and then typed an increasingly abstract combination of different words.
It wasn’t out there yet.
Instead, the discovery of three more Lost Boys was the dominant story. It was the top headline on the front page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I read the first few sentences of the article and then decided to set it aside for a moment.
I needed coffee.
I walked over to the kitchen counter, scooped some freshly ground beans from the Northside Roastery into the filter, filled the machine with water, and waited for the magical brown liquid to start its slow drip into the glass carafe.
It was quiet in the house. The sun had barely peeked above the horizon. The garden was peaceful, and the low morning light gave it a look of anticipation. The plants knew the heat was coming and wanted to enjoy the day while they could.
Sammy was still asleep, and I figured that I had at least an hour more to myself.
The night before, my mother and the Judge had left shortly after Schmitty. The Judge had told me that we would “revisit” Sammy’s choice of school in the near future, which meant I half expected him to come through the door with a schedule of campus visits at any moment.
The coffeemaker beeped twice, meaning that it was done, and I filled my cup.
There were no more excuses.
I had to figure out a plan. I couldn’t be an observer of my own life. I had to take control, or what little I had left would be washed away. Sammy needed an engaged father. My clients needed a real lawyer. My own father deserved an answer. And Tanisha Walker needed to know what happened to her brother.
I walked back to my toy room. I turned on the lights, walked over to the worktable, sat down, and removed an empty sketch pad from the drawer.
This was the first time I had ever used the room for anything besides solitude. The toy room now had to become a place I worked and made decisions.
I turned to a blank page and began to write. It was a list of all the things that I needed to do to help Sammy find a new school. Dealing with the parents of the bullies was secondary. Then I started writing a list of everything I needed to do for work; a list of thoughts, ideas, and facts about Tanisha Walker’s brother and the other Lost Boys; and finally a structure to make a decision for my father and about my future.
I wasn’t going to run away. I was going to run toward it, whatever it may be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
It was shortly before noon when Sammy finally emerged and came downstairs. She had eaten a short stack of pancakes, three scrambled eggs, and four sausages in her room. “Didn’t realize how hungry I was.”
“Well,” I said, picking up her dirty plate and starting to the sink with it, “you didn’t really eat much yesterday.” I saw her begin to retreat, and so I tried to keep her engaged. “Talked with my mom and the Judge last night. They’d like you to come over there and hang out, maybe watch a movie. I’m going to the office real quick, just to check on some things, and then I’ll be back.”
“That’s fine, Dad.” Sammy sighed. “You don’t need to babysit me.”